For all those who believed that the U.S. economy had finally climbed out of the doldrums, the news from the nation's shopping malls last week came as a slap in the face. The Commerce Department reported that Americans shut their wallets in March and sent retail sales down 1% for the steepest monthly decline in more than two years. While part of that drop reflected the severe March weather, Commerce revised its earlier optimistic figures for February, saying store sales had fallen 0.3% instead of rising 0.3%, as it had originally reported. "The momentum of the recovery is decidedly fading," says...
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